


we should live (until we die)

by cigarettekisses



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cigarettekisses/pseuds/cigarettekisses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>set way too many years from now. title comes from 'the gambler' by fun. and please don't kill me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	we should live (until we die)

**Author's Note:**

> set way too many years from now. title comes from 'the gambler' by fun. and please don't kill me.

your fingers are clutching my sides when i wake up. even in your sleep you don’t want to let me go. and i shouldn’t find that as heart-warming as i do, but i really do.

i open my eyes, just a little bit and i can barely see a thing. i probably should get used to it, my eyesight has been failing me ever since i turned twenty. i can still remember when you found out that i needed eyeglasses, you dragged me all the way to the mall to get them done. the boys teased me a lot but you said _you look really cute, lou_ with your dopey lopsided grin, your blush growing redder and redder and i found it amusing, i still do.

i look down at the top of your head, your face pressed to my chest. you don’t have your unruly curls anymore, the mop of hair that all the girls used to go crazy about every time you flipped it. _flip the curls for the girls_ niall often joked and you obeyed because that’s just how you are. all that’s in there are greying wisps and i remember telling you that _that’s all i’m here for haz. when you lose the curls, i’m walking out that door_ and you laughed so hard that i made a promise to make you laugh each day. they tease you about how you laugh like there’s no tomorrow but i tell you that i love it, i will always do.

i fumble for my eyeglasses on the bedside table and i make my way to the kitchen. i think of the amount of times we christened and rechristened the kitchen counter when we moved in here. the boys said we should _get a room you assholes!_ but we chuckled and retorted with _it’s our house go find your own you assholes!_

i don’t have any idea what to make for breakfast, i never did learn how to cook. no matter how many times you tried to teach me, everything ended in food fights and sex anyway. so you gave up and said _that’s it you’re never allowed in the kitchen anymore_ but you let me stay to play with the batter anyway or taste the food before you serve them in the dinner table.

just as i’m pouring milk in the bowl of oatmeal, i hear your voice saying _louis_.

and it’s enough to make me happy for the entire day i guess. because most days you don’t even remember my name anymore.

i smile and look at you asking _oatmeal?_ and you nod slowly, walking to settle yourself on a stool as i try to get another bowl from the cupboard. it’s still up there, high like you used to keep them away from me. you used to get them for me when i need it and i’d keep them somewhere lower but i don’t have the heart to do it. i want it just the way it used to be, when we first started living in this house.

i sit next to you and we eat in silence, and i wonder what you’re thinking but i’ve gotten used to quiet mornings by now and it doesn’t matter. you said my name today remember? without me having to remind you that i’m your husband of almost fifty years now. it’s enough, you’ll always be enough.

your fingers are thin and bony, still huge like they used to be, but now more fragile. i remember when those same hands and those same tiny wrists could support my weight when you fuck me into the walls of our house. they’re just memories now, happy memories, but darling how much i still love you.

your hands are shaking over the spoon, and i scoot closer to you, resting my head on your shoulder and you stop shaking, sighing contentedly. i remember when we were younger, still performing on huge stadiums and arenas and you’d shake badly, throwing up every now and then from anxiousness and i’d hold your hand and you’d stop shaking and i’d tell you _it’s going to be fine_ and you believe me, you always do.

in the afternoon i find you fixing the dinner table. there’s wine and flowers and candles, and i ask _what’s going on, love?_ and you say _it’s not ready yet. go and watch something babe_. you look fragile as can be, i no longer tease you for being _such a giant you are, stop growing would you?_ , and i’d cry but i don’t because you look so happy with your whisk and your apron and it’s been a long time since i’ve seen you so happy about something.

in the evening you pour me a glass of my favourite wine even though i’ve told you so many times that _i don’t have a favourite you idiot. they all taste the same after a few glasses_ but you know that i do. you always know.

_happy anniversary_ you say once i’m seated, wrapping your arms on my shoulder and searching for my lips. i kiss you, like i always do.

i don’t tell you that it’s not our anniversary yet, that it’s tomorrow and not tonight because i don’t want to erase that smile on your face. you still have the same endearing smile you have ever since we met, i don’t want to deny you of that.

when we finish eating you take me to the living room and the lights are all out. you put a record on your player, that _hipster as shit player_ i always called it. but you love it so much and i love it so much too because it made you so happy when we found it in a garage sale and you _couldn’t believe our luck, lou! they were going to throw it out because no one seemed interested!_

you say _dance with me_ the same way you did on our first anniversary and _the gambler_ is playing the way it did on our first anniversary. i reach for your shoulders the way i always do and you settle your hands on my waist like you always do. we never learned to dance but i love dancing with you so we dance slow, slow as can be and when your head is tucked on my neck whispering _i love you i love you i love you_ over and over again and i’m whispering _i love you too i love you too i love you too_ over and over again, i’m wishing that this night would never end but it does, like every night does.

in the morning i don’t find you by my side and miraculously, my head isn’t throbbing like i expect it to be. i’m in the couch and wrapped in a blanket i don’t remember getting for myself. i shouldn’t find it as endearing, but you know i’m just so in love with you.

i find you in the patio, lying in the hammock. i know that you don’t remember it’s our anniversary, i don’t expect you to.

the sunlight makes you look younger, _like a fairy or a pixie_ i say to myself. you’re holding the photo album you made yourself a few years back. you loved taking pictures of us and you loved keeping them. i called you a _sentimental git_ but you know i loved that you loved taking pictures of us and you loved keeping them. i know you don’t remember that you’re the one who made it though.

i pick flowers on my way, making a flower crown that i put on top of your head, and you smile, it’s enough, you’ll always be enough.

i struggle to lie beside you, but we manage, we always do.

you ask me my name, it’s fine.

you ask me stories about the pictures, i smile and tell you patiently.

you listen quietly, and every now and then i’d look at you and i find you listening like a child. engrossed and too interested. your eyes are still the most stunning shade of green and your lips are still as red as a cherry, as plump as it was when you were sixteen and i was eighteen.

i never tell it to the others but i miss the times when you used to tell me stories. _too long, too boring_ i’d tease but you know that i listened, because no matter how _boring_ you might tell a story i couldn’t help but smile because it’s so _you_.

i tell you about our son, and the way he’s just like you, and our daughter, and how she’s just like me, and niall, who never got married and loves life still, and zayn and liam, who never got married to each other but stayed together, and you fall asleep, with a smile and a flower crown i made for you. it’s a tradition i guess. because you love flowers so much that i made sure we’d have a garden in our own house. i teased you of being _a little princess_ but you just pouted and i kissed the pout off of your face. because hate seeing you frown. a person like you deserve to be happy forever, deserve to smile forever. you have the face for it, you see.

when it’s nearing lunch i try to wake you up, but you don’t.

i promised myself i wouldn’t cry when this happened. i promised because you made me, thirty years ago when you had an accident and you thought you were going to die, intoxicated in anaesthetic drugs, smoking your first and last cigarette ever because zayn convinced you to, you made me promise and i did because you know i’d do anything for you.

i entwine our fingers together, you’re still warm and still smiling, as if you’re just sleeping.

tears start falling from my eyes but i will them away because i promised you, i did.

and i wished for this anyway, that i hope i’ll be the last to die between the two of us because i couldn’t bear leave you alone.

i look out at our garden and our white picket fence and the bricks i laid out myself and i smile and i know i can feel death, i really can. i should be afraid but i’m not. i start gently singing instead, that song you sang to me when you first got back home after the accident.

_we’ve got fifty good years_

_left to spend out in the garden_

_i don’t care to beg your pardon_

_we should live, until we die_

i close my eyes and i breathe out. i thought it would be harder you see. i thought it would be scary, but it isn’t.

in a while they’d come here, zayn and liam and niall and our daughter and our son, like they always do on our anniversary, trying to humor me when you don’t remember a thing.

they’d be crying. but it isn’t because an old couple died alone in an old house, no. they’d be crying because liam would point out that we lived and we died together, holding a photo album that you kept for a long time and on a hammock i built for the two of us.

we’re going to be buried in the same garden i promised you when we you turned nineteen and the funeral is going to be solemn and intimate, the way you always wanted our life to be. niall would say something funny about us being joined at the hip ever since we met and everyone is going to cry but they’re happy for the two of us.

that’s about right isn’t it haz?

_we’re going to stay in a house we built for the two of us._

_we built a home for each other._

_and i couldn’t have asked for more._


End file.
